Cowboy poets and musicians from across western Canada – including Rocky View County – and the United States are getting set to assemble this weekend for three days of storytelling, humour, and song at the Alberta Cowboy Poetry Association’s (ACPA) “Trail’s End” gathering at the High River Gospel Church.
“It’s our big event,” explained ACPA past president and Bragg Creek resident Jesse Colt, who has been writing cowboy poetry for nearly 20 years. “We have members in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Montana, and B.C. They will be there. It’s a pretty big show, really.”
Cowboy Poetry is a traditional style of poetry that often combines rhyme and humour with a deep-seated notalgia about Western culture and history. It celebrates the cowboy lifestyle. Like other forms of traditional poetry in the bardic tradition, it is meant to be read aloud and is sometimes accompanied by music.
Colt, who will be a featured performer at the event in High River, said this weekend's gathering is more exciting than usual because it marks the first time in two years the ACPA’s poets have been able to assemble due to COVID restrictions.
“We are quite excited about it,” confirmed Colt, whose book Short Poems And Tall Cowboys won the Will Rogers Medallion Award in 2005. “We haven’t seen one another very much the past two years. And over two years, people change. They write some new poems and songs.”
Colt said he loves to write cowboy poetry because it is very accessible to anyone who reads it or hears it spoken aloud.
“It’s amazing,” he explained. “There are some people who you would think are not at all interested in poetry that really enjoy it. A typical cowboy poetry poem has a story, an ending, and a punchline with a bit of a lesson in it. There’s a lot of humour. I would say 80 per cent of it is humorous, but some is quite moving.”
The medium is also a great way to celebrate the western way of life, which is still alive and kicking in Alberta, according to Colt.
“It’s a chance to maybe educate people a bit about our western culture, and cowboys in general,” he confirmed.
Other Rocky View County and area performers who will be featured at the ACPA's “Trail’s End” event are Dalemead’s Nora Maidman and Crossfield’s Wendy Vaughan.
For more information on the ACPA and its events, visit Alberta Cowboy Poetry.
